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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The other day, while running errands with the kids, we stopped in a pet shop to look around. You want a cheap way to entertain the kiddos? Just go to your local pet shop and let them admire all the creatures there. So, the kids were staring at the birds, then the mice and hamsters, then Lexi walked over to another enclosure and squealed, "Look! Jaguars! Look at the jaguars! Jaguars, Mom! Look!"

I thought, "Hmmm, this pet shop is really expanding if they're selling jaguars now." I peered into the tank to see a couple of ferrets sleeping, all piled up on each other. "Um Lex, hon, those aren't jaguars. Those are ferrets." but I could see how you could confuse them because they look so much alike

"Oh that's what I meant!"

I thought maybe we should take one last trip to the zoo before school starts. You know, remind my kids of the difference between say, zebras and lizards, jaguars and ferrets, and such. So, yesterday I packed up a cooler and the kids and went to the zoo with my dad. Since a lot of kids are back in school, it was pretty empty and the weather was absolutely beautiful!

As the kids were getting ready for bed last night, Jackson looked outside and yelled, "Mom! Quick! There's something outside! Come quick!" Well I ran to the door but missed whatever Jackson had seen.

"I think it was a wombat, Mom!"

"It wasn't a wombat. Wombats live in Australia." did they learn nothing at the zoo???

"Well, it looked like a wombat," Jackson insisted.

"It was probably an opossum or a raccoon or something," I informed him.

Well, Clay, being the little punk he is, decided to scare Lexi. "A wombat's outside and it's going to come into your room while you sleep."

There went the next half hour as I tried to convince Lexi that even if wombats lived around here, I wouldn't let one into the house and into her room.

Things have a way of coming back to bite you in the butt though. So, a few minutes later, Clay decided that he was scared of killer wombats too and he walked into the family room insisting he could only go to sleep in my bed.

"There are no wombats outside! If there were, they wouldn't come inside anyway. And wombats don't eat people. They eat plants! You guys are reading all the signs in the Australia house the next time we go to the zoo and there will be a test on it!"

Savannah volunteered to take Clayton back to bed. She scooped him up and started carrying him to his room. Awww, how sweet, huh? About halfway there, she shrieked, "Aeeeiiiiiaaaaeee! A WOMBAT!!!"

Clay actually took flight as he leapt from her arms and ran back to the family room.

I am a cold, cruel and heartless mother. I make mine go back to their beds and let them crawl in on my husband's side of the bed after I'm so konked out I wouldn't know if the world ended. I'm just fine with letting him seem like the hero because that carries way more responsibility than I want to own.

Thanks for sharing the pictures from the zoo! What amazes me is how you keep track of 6 kids and still manage to take pictures and videos. We took our 4 kids to the zoo a few weeks ago for 6 hours and I think I was more tired than they all were!

Brooklyn looks so grown up in these pictures. Maybe it was from her haircut? Thanks again for the great blog and my daily therapy!

Great bedtime story and loved the pictures. Is there a way to save one picture from your slideshow? I have a niece that loves giraffes and would like to use the photo of the two giraffes in a card for her.

The Zoo pictures were great. We don't have very big Zoo's in this part of FL. We do have those big lizzards. You never know when you will look up and see one in a tree. Kind of freaky!! The monkey video's were hilarious. You have beautiful children. Kids make life so much more fun. Thanks for sharing.

LOL!! That is so funny! It reminds me of when I was younger and my two brothers would torment my two sisters and myself. They used to actually chase me around the house and when they caught me (they would ALWAYS catch me) they would literally stick my head in the oven. Actually, that explains quite alot about the way I am today...lol.

You're getting pretty good at this photo/video thing. I watched the whole show. But you had to show the gorilla picking his nose and eating it - didn't you? (I assume it was a "he". Seems that life generally works that way.) Maybe a new flavor for Jelly Bellies - gorilla snot! Huh? Good idea?

haha, i love your kids! quiz them on every animal in the zoo and they will love you for it! years down the road when they are in the zoo with their kids they will say "grandma made me learn all about wombats and australia, and jaguars, too so my beloved kids, this is why we never take grandma to the zoo!"

About wild animals in the house...we woke up yesterday and what we initially thought was a mess made by our cats on our stairs was a dead bat. BAT. IN MY HOUSE. We really don't know how it got in, I'm just happy the cats didn't deposit it on my pillow! EWW.-Heather

i just started reading your blog! i love it! I am a mother of two (6 and 2) but I work in the 4 year-old classroom at a daycare . . so I feel i am the mother of MANY more! I loved this post about animals- we just learned about animals in class, did you know that wolves and skunks look suspiciously alike - and both of them apparently love pizza? and sharks eat boats . .. I learn so much from all of my children!

*cackle* That is so something I would have pulled on my baby sister...because if I didn't, my brother would have. We were competitive about scarring the poor child's brain. It's amazing she speaks to us, and even more amazing what a well-adjusted adult she is.

My nearly two year old plays "wombat" he puts his head down and tries to force his way through whatever is in front of him, a door, someones chest, his baby cousin, and he knows exactly what we mean when we get cranky and say "NO MORE WOMBATS!" Also, did you know that wombats poo cubes??? there is a lolly company here that makes "wombat poo" lollies, little hard brown boiled lolly cubes with an aniseed flavour:) and I agree, the drop bears are FAR more dangerous than wombats!

When I was growing up, I shared a room with my two sisters, and my middle sister and I kept the youngest one in her bed at night by telling her the "miceroys" were going to get her. They lived in the walls and you could hear them (we'd scratch the walls). Poor kid wouldn't get out of bed for anything at night.

Two things on this subject. First of all, I would like to point out that if you were with Clay and Lexie and Brooklyn last night, you DIDN'T sleep. (Been there all week - we are bed training in her OWN room a 3 year old)

And second of all, I just picked up a guide of acronyms for cell phones and chat groups that teens use such as p911 ( parent alert ) rofl, lmao, wth (what the heck it said), and our favorite hands down was the one we will use for many movie reviews in the future: WOMBAT. Waste of money, brains, and time. I just loved it.

Then, the next day, you wrote this funny story about wombats. Well, if they are that good for a scare, maybe they aren't a WOMBAT!

PS, 2 of my daughters were terrible 2 or 3 like Brooklyn with the ongoing, neverending tantrums. I thought I would die.

I think I didn't trust my older daughter to be truly sweet again until she was about 5. But, they do outgrow it as long as you don't feed their tantrums. And you can talk to a pediatrician. Maybe your Dr. has ideas, such as sleep deprivation - from a sleep disorder, or too many wombats around.